President’s Message

President’s Report, September 2016

Dear Members of PHA,

I have been your president now for three months, and we now have a new committee structure. I encourage any members who might be interested in serving on one of these committees to contact me by phone or email. It is my goal to get more of our members involved to strengthen the organization with your opinions, ideas, and energy in the coming year.

Your officers, I, Paul Wermer, Dot Janson and Mike Brassington will be the official executive committee. That body will meet once a month to write the agenda for the next meeting. It is our hope that most of PHA’s activities will be generated in Standing Committees. I hope you have all been thinking about what roles you would like to play. There may be other members (not on the board) who might be included in some of the committees.

Whitney Hall has resigned from the board, but will be writing things for the newsletter and helping out as needed. Both he and Gary Widman are now officially President Emeriti. Gary will be keeping a watchful eye on the legal landscape in the Presidio.

In my term PHA will continue to be a strong voice for history and to have a good time doing so. I want get to know our members, their interests and skills, and involve more of you in the business of PHA. I want to get to know the Trust board, staff and players, as well as those in other Presidio organizations.

Gary and I met with the new director of the Bay School, and gave him a short walking tour of some of the more intensely historical areas (the Main Post, El Polin Springs).

I have been actively looking for board members with skills in landscape design. We also could use someone with fundraising experience.

We are interested to see that Building 1648 is being used as part of the “Homeland Security” Art Exhibit currently open to the public. So far the State Office of Historic Preservation has not finished reviewing the latest revision of the MOA for the demolition of that building. The Board suggested several changes in an excellent letter by one of our members. NPS has incorporated “most” of our suggestions, but we have yet to see a new version. We hope that a new GGNRA Superintendant will be more interested in Historic Preservation and will see the benefits of interpreting the Cold War along with all the other historic examples of coastal defense in the Presidio.